The Uncounted
by Moranth
Summary: A series of oneshots exploring what *might be* the motives and final moments of the mercs you encounter on many of the missions in Mass Effect 2
1. Blue Suns

**Blue Suns**

* * *

"Don't go," she said, looking at me with those soulful eyes.

Of course I didn't want to leave her. There's nothing I would have liked more than to go back inside and lay back down in our bed. But when I saw her standing there in the doorway, her hands resting on a belly so swollen that she looked like she was about to pop reminded me of why I _needed_ to go.

"Go back to bed," I said as I pressed my forehead against hers. I lingered longer than I should have, but her scent and her warmth are calling me back inside.

"Today's shift is going to be pretty easy," I said, trying to lessen the blow. She hates the job, but understands why I do it. Why I have to."I should be home early." My mandibles flared in a grin that she didn't return.

"Just be safe, Doren," she says as she steps back through the door.

_Be safe._

Looking after an ex-cop in hiding wasn't exactly what I would have called honorable work, but it was work that paid the bills, and we had a lot of bills.

Living on the Citadel had never been cheap and there was only so much work someone like me could get.

My superiors during my mandatory service said the Spirits must have been watching my backside for me to be able to survive without a hole in the head. I'd never been the brightest star, but I did try…

They might have been right about someone looking out for me… I don't know how else to explain my winding up with Gia.

Giadora was funny, smart and way out of my league. What she ever saw in a guy like me, I'll never know.

Eventually, we moved in together. When she got pregnant, I knew that working as a groundskeeper's assistant wasn't going to cut it anymore.

It would only be a matter of time before she wouldn't be able to work, we'd eventually need a bigger place, and of course there was the trip we had to make to Palaven to tell the good news to her folks, my folks…

My shift was going like any other: We played a little cards, watched a couple of vids. Nothing ever happened on this babysitting detail, but we were supposed to be there, just in case. Everything was running smooth until the call came in that we had company coming our way.

Even though it was the first bit of action I'd seen on this watch, I didn't sweat it. One thing I could do was hold a gun. Point and shoot, it wasn't very hard, and with the auto-targeting, I didn't have to be very accurate. Unless we were facing a small army, no one thought there was much to worry about.

Now, I wish I had.

No sooner had I taken the safety off my piece than I had Commander-god-damn-Shepard baring down on me.

I held my ground and fired back because it was what I was paid to do. Besides, I didn't think he would have taken my surrender seriously.

You don't take out an army of Geth and live to tell the tale by being merciful.

…The fight didn't last long. My shields couldn't hold up against that type of firepower and soon they sputtered and died. I took two shots to the chest, and that was all she wrote.

As I hit the ground, Shepard and his cronies stepped over me without giving me a second look, too focused on whatever their goal was. I don't really know what else I expected from them… I wish I could have been that focused.

My body grew cold as my life spilled out of me and onto the warehouse floor. My thoughts, of course turned to Gia and how I wished I could lay with her now to keep me warm. I wanted to smell her scent, to hold her, to see our baby being born, to watch him grow up…

I should have gone back inside.


	2. Eclipse

**Eclipse**

* * *

_Do your job, and keep your head down_. That was the plan, and usually, it worked.

My shift for the Eclipse, one job of many, started just like any other day; going over the squad's weapons were in working order, making sure the squad leader's omnitool was malware free; it was grunt work, but the pay was good, and _usually,_ I didn't have to stick my neck out, so I didn't complain.

I'd lasted to the ripe age of twenty-five using that methodology, but that was the thing about putting theory into practice. Eventually, it was bound to fail, if only once. And that one time would be the one that mattered.

I was almost done. Everything was checked and running. It was almost time for me to leave, when the air over head erupted with gunfire. As the merc's engaged whoever it was bearing down on us, I took cover behind some boxes. Not my bravest moment, but I didn't sign up for this job to be brave.

"I want every available gun to hose these fucks down," the squad leader's voice crackled in my headset. "That means you, Katon."

_Shit._

I didn't have much choice. If I turned tail now, not only would I not be able to work with any other merc group on Illium, Captain MIgana would be sure to find my ass and make sure I couldn't work _anywhere_.

Even as I brought up my gun, I knew it was a lost cause. Veterans who'd been fighting for longer than I'd been alive fell around me. Their reflexes too slow to see that they'd put themselves in the line of fire. What chance did I have? But I had to do something.

I peeked out from cover, and got a first glimpse of our attackers; a human, a turian, and a krogan. An unlikely bunch, but whatever. The turian looked as if he'd suffered the most damage during the firefight, as he lagged behind the other two, favoring his left leg. I aimed for him, most likely the easiest to pick off and took my shot.

It was oddly satisfying to watch the turian go down, and I'll admit, I let it go to my head. The look of shocked anger crossed our enemies faces, and I knew that I was on the right track. Emboldened, I sent a few techniques their way, dropping their shields. The remaining mercs looked as surprised by this change of events as our enemies did who were now, scrabbling for cover. We rallied forward, actually pushing the remaining aggressors to hide behind the unfinished pillars on this floor.

And that's when I heard it.

It was a quiet whirring, like an engine starting up from a far, but there were no cars around. I looked toward the enemy to see the gun he held was glowing as he charged up energy. That wasn't good. Everyone else surged forward, unable to hear it.

"Retreat!" I screamed over the comm, but the mercs didn't hear me or didn't listen. With a loud thunk, a huge ball of dark matter was launched into our midst. It pulsed and swelled, and too late the mercs realized what was going on. Some of them tried to scramble back, others surged forward, still firing at the enemy. I found my own feet frozen in place.

Soon, the ball started to pull everything within a 4 meter radius towards it, myself included. I felt weightless, caught in its gravity. It was pulling me, all of us towards its center. The ball pulsed again before it shrank.

I thought briefly of the mating contract reply that had come into my mailbox right before I started my shift, and how I'd said I'd look at it later, but now later would never come.

I imagined what things might have been different if I'd never showed up to work. Might have had some young, might have been able to leave a something behind, someone to remember me if only briefly. The ball of dark matter exploded without warning, spewing both dark and light from its core.

Then...nothing


	3. Blue Suns  Batarian

**Blue Suns - Batarian**

* * *

I won't waste time telling you my name. You wouldn't be able to pronounce it and I'd rather you didn't butcher it by trying. It's not important in the scope of why you're listening... You just want to hear about the end.

I was SIU -Special Intervention Unit- on some outlying colony. It wasn't an easy job. It gave me standing, it gave me a little bit of respect, but what I needed was more. That and money. Colonials didn't make as much as those on Khar'shan, even if the job was just as dangerous. By default, not being born on the home world made me lower rank than a Khar'shan peer. I should have let sleeping dogs lie, but I needed more than the Hegemony could give me.

The Blue Suns were always hiring: trainers, people who actually knew how to handle a weapon. They weren't a young organization, but they were indiscriminate with who they let work for them for the most part. I guess that explains why things turned out how they did.

I was a trainer for a while, teaching the new recruits to tell their pecker from their elbow, not that they were too quick to catch on. Soon, I put in a transfer to be on the front lines where I could start killing humans instead of training them, and it wouldn't feel like I was wasting my time. That's where I shined.

Yeah, I got a little satisfaction out of taking them out, so what? It was better the ones shooting at me than the ones on my side, miserable shits.

I don't know how often I found an expletive written on my locker, or pieces of my gear missing, only to be found in the latrine. I wasn't at Torfan, and neither were any of these fucks, otherwise we'd both be dead. They just hated me on principle, and I hated them back.

Let me get this out of the way right now: humans are filth. They came into Council space and complained about every goddamn thing, especially when they didn't get their way. My people had been exercising their _right_ to have slaves for years, and the Council looked the other way until the humans made a stink. We were doing this before they climbed out of the protoplasmic muck and started scratching around in the dirt with sticks, and on their say so, we become the pariahs. Their shit nearly drove my father bankrupt... Nevermind that they started a war with the turians on sight. I've got no love for you dirty, two-eyed apes. But your money spends just fine.

The last day was like any other. I grabbed my gear, showed my face to whatever lump was calling the shots for this shift, and took my post.

That Vido was a Hell of a stickler for security. Paranoid like a volus up to his breather in debt. He wanted round the clock security on that damned refinery we already held. We were the dominating presence on that hunk of rock. No one was going to contest us for it. Seems like he had a reason to be jumpy, though.

When that little ship dropped down, we didn't know what to expect. They thought they were slick, jamming our radar just long enough to make their descent, but a blip on this equipment was enough to throw up red flags.

I wasn't in the team that went to investigate, I was at the refinery, making sure the slaves were rounded up. If a fight broke out, the first thing they'd do would be to run. It would have made sense to take the bulk of our forces and hunt who had touched down, but I wasn't the guy in charge.

This was no place to make a last stand. We were packed in there tight, with so many narrow corridors with twists and turns. There was no way to see the enemy until they were right on top of us, and we had no idea of what we were facing, but Vido... He knew.

I don't know if he heard some radio chatter, or ran into the fuckers themselves, but as soon as that bastard started running, everything was ablaze. Didn't tell us anything but "Shoot! Shoot!" as he ran through the corridors. It was bedlam. People didn't know if they should stay or go, try to save their honor or their lives. For me, the choice wasn't so hard.

If the enemy was coming right at us, we didn't have many options. If we ran, or tried to put out the fires first, we'd probably be mowed down. We needed to take out this yet unseen enemy before we tried to do anything else.

They weren't trying to be stealthy. We heard them before we saw them: two humans and the ugliest krogan I've ever seen, not that any of them are something you'd want to look at too long. I figured I'd try to fix that face of his with a well-placed rocket, and I hit him dead on.

I don't care how tough you are, you take a rocket to the chest, you go down. Only this fuck didn't stay down. I'm not green, I've seen a lot of things in the field, but I've never seen anything like that. He got up, shook it off, and kept on coming. And the humans never skipped a beat. They didn't even stop to check on him, like they'd expected it.

I shot some more, and they seemed to just dance around them, so I tried to switch to something a little more reliable. I switched to my SMG, thinking the others could keep them occupied for that long... This is what I get for thinking I could rely on my lessers.

I had the gun in my hands, but by then the human, the lead, was on me, She rushed ahead of the others and hit me with a charge. I thought it was the krogan that got me at first. As I reeled back, my shields already down, she put the gun against my ribs and fired. It hurt like Hell, but I didn't have long to feel it.

She looked down at me for a long time, probably couldn't tell I was cursing her behind my helmet. She put a bullet in my brain.

…

She didn't look too pleased about it, so I guess there's something to be said for that.


End file.
